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Heeding Warren Buffett’s provocative advice from a month-old
New
York Times commentary, President Obama has proposed the
“Buffett Rule”—a so-called millionaire’s tax that Buffett boldly
predicted would be welcomed by his fellow super-rich.

But you won’t guess who refused to take a stand on whether
they’re for or against such a policy?

They are among some twenty of the richest liberal-minded moguls
and high-earning executives in media and tech whom I informally
polled on the wrenching national issue of tax equality.

“I’m an observer in a complicated world,” replied former Disney
CEO Michael Eisner, declining to comment.

Such steadfast reticence is remarkably surprising, given the
makeup of the survey audience.

Not only do fabulously wealthy media and tech leaders revere
Buffett, with their presence over-indexing in his social and
business circles.

But even more notably, this elite also presides over industries
bulging with election-year campaign dollars for President Obama.
The entertainment industry flooded his coffers with some $2.53
million in this year’s first half.

And his scheduled fundraising swing through Hollywood on Monday
will collect as much as $35,800 per couple.

I conducted the informal poll in the weeks since the Times
published a lightening-rod opinion piece by Buffett on Aug. 14.
However, the polled was completed before Obama announced the
“Buffett Rule” last week, taking dead aim at the income of his
richest political supporters.

Under the headline, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” Buffett
basically argued that fairness demands he and fellow mega-wealthy
citizens be slapped with a tax rate at least as rich as what the
struggling middle-class currently pays.

Multibillionaire
entertainment impresario David Geffen.

“I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are
very decent people…” wrote the nation’s second wealthiest citizen
($39 billion). “Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in
taxes… particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are
truly suffering.”

Based on the overall poor response to my survey, however,
projecting whether Buffett is right or wrong would be a joke. To
be sure, a handful of media and tech’s Who’s Who responded
substantively. But hardly should conclusions be drawn from the
tiny sample of divergent responses.

David Geffen, for example, eagerly concurred with the legendary
Berkshire Hathaway chairman. “I completely agree with Buffett,”
said the multibillionaire entertainment impresario and investor.

GE CEO Jeff
Immelt.

So, too, does CEO Jeff
Immelt of GE, who wooed
Buffett to invest $5 billion at the height of the economic
crisis. Immelt, who’s also Obama’s volunteer jobs-creation czar,
“agrees with Warren and is okay with paying higher personal
taxes,” a GE spokesman said. “Is that clear?”

Through a spokesman, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey
Katzenberg—one of Obama’s earliest major financial
backers—also embraced Buffett’s position “on this issue.”

Barry
Diller, however, parted ways with Buffett, his long-time
friend. “I agree with Warren
Buffett on most everything but on this issue I demur,” the
hugely well-off Internet mogul replied by email. “I do not
believe that ordinary income should be taxed at a higher rate.”

InterActiveCorp
chief Barry Diller.

Diller does call for a complete tax-code overhaul to simplify it
and close loopholes “through which tax avoidance occurs.”

Straddling the fence is Buffett’s dear chum, Herbert Allen Jr.,
the billionaire media banker and host of the annual gathering of
media and tech moguls in Sun Valley. Like Buffett, he (and
Diller, too) is all for Uncle Sam’s grabbing more of the hundreds
of millions, even billions, in yearly pay for hedge fund barons.
They benefit from unwarranted bargain tax rates on “carried
interests,” he argues.

Yet, Allen also believes Buffett and other voices are woefully
understating current burdens on the rich, which in his view
includes state, dividend and estate taxes. The national tax
debate “is a fiction,” Allen told me. “What is the true [tax
rate] that everyone should begin arguing about?”

Many more, including some with extraordinarily close ties to
Buffett, wouldn’t add their prominent voices to the debate around
whether their income bracket is bearing a “fair” share or not of
the taxes.

Nor, in almost every instance, would they say why they refused to
register a viewpoint.

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.AP

“We are not commenting on the op-ed, so I apologize if I seem
unhelpful,” replied Bill Gates’ chief publicist. The ties are
unusually close between the Microsoft cofounder, No. 1 on the
Forbes rich-list
with a $59-billion fortune, and Buffett, who bequeathed his
fortune to the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation.

At the same time, Microsoft employees and affiliates were Obama’s
fourth
largest contributor in the 2008 election, to the tune of
$852,000.

Multiple attempts to reach Facebook
founder and CEO Mark
Zuckerberg also came up short. “We understand that you may be
on deadline and will do our best to respond as quickly as
possible,” Facebook press office twice replied since Aug. 22.

Similarly, repeated efforts failed to lure CEO Michael Lynton of
Sony
Pictures Entertainment, who last April helped organize an Obama
fundraiser on the studio lot that netted $35,000 from each of 60
guests.

Burke voted for Obama in 2008. Comcast,
where he also is a top executive, has pointed this out in the
past to rebut speculation that top management is politically
conservative. In fact, the cable giant has become one of Obama’s
most generous show business contributors since the Administration
approved Comcast’s $30-billion control of NBC
Universal in January.

Not surprisingly, many media and tech executives were on vacation
in mid-to-late August during the initial polling. Of course, that
didn’t mean they couldn’t participate, as a relaxed Geffen
proved. “I am in Turkey on my boat,” he emailed from
Pelorus, his 376-feet super-yacht.

Reinvigorated and back at their offices after Labor Day, several
media elite, including Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and filmmaker
Steven Spielberg, declined to comment or wouldn’t respond through
spokespersons.

Disney, meanwhile, is firmly in the Obama-Buffett orbit.
Its employees shelled out more than $84,000 in campaign
contributions in the first six months of the year. And Berkshire
Hathaway owned a major stake in Capital Cities/ABC, parent of the
ABC and
ESPN, when
Buffett helped negotiate Disney’s purchase of the company sixteen
years ago.

The company seemed at pains to respond for CEO Iger. On Aug. 22,
a Disney spokeswoman brushed off the survey on his behalf.
“Sorry, but [B]ob is out of the country this week and won't
be participating in this,” she emailed. By mid-September, Iger
had ended the vacation but now was on a foreign business trip,
she said. Within hours, after I pressed, the spokeswoman
reported that Iger actually had declined to participate in the
survey after he’d returned from vacation but that she’d neglected
to mention it to me.

By contrast, the vacationing Michael Eisner, who preceded Iger as
Disney CEO and negotiated the Capital Cities deal with Buffett,
left behind instructions that he would reply to callers
post-vacation. That didn’t mean he would answer the survey.

“I was in the deep woods of Colorado, and [a top assistant] told
everybody when I surfaced from bears and mountain lions and
snakes and rain, I’d call back…,” Eisner subsequently emailed.
“I’m sorry you got the feeling that I would jump into the
national conversations going on now.”